The Days Before
I left work early the Friday before the race and embarked on my solo journey to NH. Packing had been quite an adventure because I was headed for a week long vacation immediately following the race. As was typical for my summer, as soon as I started out on the drive it started torrentially raining and I needed gas before I left NJ (no self pumping for me) so I was forced to deal with getting gas in the torrential rain - which in and of itself isn't that bad, but I also needed snacks and water. Anyway, the attendant had a million questions for me about my braces and how much they were and weather they were covered by insurance because his wife apparently had bad teeth that needed to get fixed.
I didn't think that excessive conversation with the gas station attendant necessarily boded well for my trip but a few hours later I saw the most stunning rainbow which I figured did bode well - or at least well enough to negate the gas station attendant. It took close to 8 hours but I made it to NH where Marty was waiting for me in our SPACIOUS (seriously, huge) room. We made a plan for the morning and headed to bed.
In the morning we swam and I felt good - the water was warm and clear and we got out and were drying off to bike when I bee started buzzing around me. I tried to shoo it away and then I tried to run away from it and then I ran into the water because it would not leave me alone. It continued to fly around my head but eventually seemed to loose interest. Or not. Because as soon as I got out of the water it came right back and actually stung me through my bike shorts! Bastard. Finally Marty had to gather up my stuff and I sprinted out of the water towards our bikes finally eluding the bee.
After the bee incident we biked the run, got lost driving the bike course and spent most of the rest of the day doing normal pre race stuff. After dinner we got ready for bed and even though it made me slightly nervous I took an actifed (which had no adverse effects) and slept like a baby.
The morning started off smoothly until we hit traffic a mile from the race and couldn't get in to onsite parking. Marty had an earlier wave and was getting nervous so I finally kicked her out of the car and headed to park on my own. I would have been cutting it super close but the whole race was delayed because of a car accident on the bike course so as it was I had plenty of time to get ready and go for a nice swim warm up.
Swim - 39:38
Awesome is really the only way to describe this. I just felt great, I drafted, I swam hard I got out of the water and saw that there was still a chance of going sub 40 and basically took a girl out crossing the line. Strangely, I think this girl was Marty's friend. Fortunately she survived my brute force;)
T1 - 3:37
Wet suit strippers rock. I got in and out of transition as quickly as I could - making sure to put on my multi sport mastery socks and headed out on the bike ride.
Bike - 3:40:25
Someday I will go sub 3:40 on a 70.3 bike. Due to our failure to read a map well enough to drive the course, the hilliness of this course caught my by surprise. It was no Rev3, but it was also far, far from flat. My way of getting through these bikes is generally to keep the computer on cadence and time and to check my progress at one hour and then every 30-45 mins thereafter. This worked well through 3 hours and 3 gatorade bottles but then sort of backfired. At 3 hours I knew I was close to being done (relatively) and never started the fourth gatorade bottle (which also had my salt tabs mixed into it). I just kept thinking I was "almost there" and add to that some stomach queeziness, I had no desire to shuffle around my bottles to get more gatorade. The last 20 minutes of the bike seemed never ending and I couldn't have been happier to arrive in ...
T2 - 3:26
In and out as fast as I could. I stopped for sunscreen and was careful to make sure that I had everything I needed.
Run - 2:26:19
And this is when the missing gatorade comes back to kick me in the ass - or legs as the case may be. The run at this race is fun (except for the part where you have to run right past the finish line before running an additional 6.6 miles) - its a double out and back with awesome local fans. I started off WAY TOO fast and soon realized me legs were on the verge of cramping. I basically binged on salt tabs for the first 3 miles and managed to survive but it was close. I manage to run the whole way (except for water stops and one steep hill) which was a huge goal but next time I will start off super slow and aim for a negative split. I kept a close eye on the time to make sure that sub 7 hours didn't slip away - I knew the key to that was to avoid things that might make it hard to start running again. Like walking and porta pottying. With 2 miles left the guy I had been playing cat and mouse with all run totally cramped up and became that guy sitting on the side of the road unable to move. I wanted to avoid that fate so I didn't stop for any reason until I hit the finish line in 6:53!!
For the last few miles of the race I really had to pee but didn't want to stop and no matter how hard I tried could not pee while running. When I finally finished I was sooooo hot and nauseous that a porta potty would not have worked so bee lined straight to the lake where I managed to cool off and finally pee. The lake was full of race finishers though so I decided not to go under since I was likely swimming in a bunch of gatoradey pee. Gross.
I felt like death for a good hour or so after the race but eventually recovered enough to be super pleased with my sub 7 performance (guess the chatty gas station attendant wasn't a bad omen after all). And super happy to have a week at the beach to celebrate.
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